Pragmatic Minds
by Apollo Wings
Summary: Gift-fic for FenZev for being my 200th reviewer on The Daughter of the Mountain. Juliet Cousland and Riordan; steamy, smoking hot smut and a meeting of pragmatic minds tempered with the illicit Orlesian/Ferelden divide, a bit of BDSM and love. Aww... NSFW - you have been warned. Remember to review! - Apollo xxx


Author note: A gift-fic for FenZev for being my 200th reviewer on The Daughter of the Mountain.

She wanted F!Cousland and Riordan, steaming, smoking hot smut with softer, loving side that will appear too and her hating that Alistair has to do the DR with Morrigan. I loved exploring Riordan's character.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing. Don't forget to review my lovelies!

Definite M for smut including power-play, a safety word, candle wax and some bondage. NSFW - you have been warned. Before you say anything, don't yuck the yum! All I say is - proud author is proud because fuck it's hot!

Glossary of terms:

Pissed bottle - a bottle not made uniform, having an imperfection in the make be it a dent in the glass or being bent slightly. Some wine bottles are made purposely this way to look off kilter.

Un peu de mort - a little death, French phrase for orgasm. (bloody cheesy/angst filled line that is)

* * *

Juliet Cousland took a deep breath and strode out of the room, leaving Alistair and Morrigan to do what was to happen.

She found herself hating the decision been made as the door closed behind her. But it was about more than being the Warden that could take the final blow.

It was mere pragmatism, any of them could die in the days and even months it could take to get to and finally kill the Archdemon, this way – if all of the mere three of them died someone else – a non-Warden could strike that final blow and then walk away without thought of dying or the soul of the Archdemon jumping to one of the soulless darkspawn.

It still didn't mean the young warrior had to like it one iota. Her hackles had been raised about Morrigan the moment Flemeth asked her to take the witch along with them. This had been her plan all along.

And Alistair himself had pissed her off from the moment it had come to light that he'd only known Duncan six months in total from Joining to the miserable bastard's death. He'd already made her the unelected leader of them by then, the recently orphaned ex-noble who wasn't allowed to mourn or the darkspawn could have very well overwhelmed the country.

The Landsmeet was still striking a bad taste in her mouth. For all their assurances that Loghain was the enemy she'd yet to see it. Zevran, the elven assassin with the now infamously terrible advances on anything with a heartbeat and two legs, hadn't been sent by the late Regent but by the same snake that had slaughtered her family, Howe. May that man rot in the darkest depths of the Void. He'd met Loghain ever so briefly but taking the assassin with her to rescue Queen Anora had been one of her smarter decisions because he pointed out that it was Howe that hired him.

They'd said it was his fault the Wardens and King Cailan had died on the battlefield but could they not see it was darkspawn? He'd possibly saved half the army from committing suicide on the battlefield by leaving and it was a decision she'd have done too. The lives of the many outweighed that of one vainglorious King. That and Loghain hadn't actually stuck a sword or dagger anywhere near the men. But fools thought as fools did.

The slavery of the Denerim elves had been unforgivable of course. But Loghain hadn't been half the monster she was – he may have condemned those elves to living in Tevinter as slaves but she condemned the Dalish to lives as werewolves. The moment she'd realised what was going on and had seen the werewolves fighting an Ogre with ease within the Brecillian Forest she'd known that if push came to shove she'd rather be backed by feral beasts than traitorous Dalish elves.

She'd done worse things too, put a known kinslayer upon a throne and given him the power of the Anvil of the Void. Bhelen was ruthless enough to get the dwarves moving into the Dragon Age though, to get the crimes committed against the casteless of Dark Town at least halved. That was worth the stain on her soul. Plus it really was the fault of Harrowmont grasping for the dwarven throne himself that had been the entire reason they'd spent so much time in Orzammar bending over backwards to get their troops, he could rot in the Void too.

The mages she'd done right by. Just because of a few rotten apples and the want for an equal freedom to any mundane person (and who would want to be vilified for their birth?) they were to be slaughtered like cattle in an abattoir by their Templar masters? Everyone had the ability to be corrupt or goodly whether they wielded magical or political power. Even if they had no power whatsoever, a lesson she'd learned the hard way of course. But she'd stopped the templars from calling the Right of Annulment on them and gotten the mages to pledge their number to her growing army.

But back to the Landsmeet. It had been a plan she and Riordan concocted. Conscript the Regent. Not all found the man so vile, so many stood by him and Howe that if he lived to become a Grey Warden they'd have a line of volunteers for the Joining. But Alistair hadn't been pragmatic enough to see that. Even if they knew since Riordan's horrid truth of killing the Archdemon meant their own deaths shortly after they'd met the man could have meant that he'd have been able to live. When she'd called for the Regent as conscripted he'd flown into such a rage that he beheaded the man as he yielded to her on bent knee. Killed him in front of his daughter – something no child should see is their father dead or dying. She knew she'd always have nightmares about it herself.

Juliet shook her head, trying to be rid of the image of her late father, Bryce Cousland, spluttering in a crimson pool of his own blood. How odd her thoughts at the time had been on how dirty the pantry floor had been, so detached from reality by the deaths she'd had doled out just recently.

When Eamon – dickface – Guerrin had said Alistair would take the crown she'd almost bellowed the NO! and then calmly stated that Ferelden rule would not start with the bloody murder of the Hero of River Dane in front of the dowager Queen, his daughter. Anora and she had decided beforehand that she'd keep the throne with how unsuitable Alistair was to it. But they'd hashed out the plan that if and when Fergus was found alive that the families of Cousland and Mac Tir would be united in marriage. It was a bit heartless considering the deaths of his wife and son when they'd both lost their parents but it would be the uniting bond that the Ferelden nobles would rally under and stop looking down upon the Queen for her commoner birth. Her brother and the Queen would take the throne she'd declared to the astonished nobles in the Landsmeet room, still gawping at the beheaded body of their Hero laying on the floor.

Anora was a stronger woman than she, had excused herself shortly after the Landsmeet and the rousing speech she'd just pulled out of her arse – very likely to weep for the father she'd lost. Were their situations reversed she'd have declared that Alistair would hang. But the Queen was even more pragmatic than even she and understood when both Riordan and herself explained why the Grey Wardens were needed. A necessary telling to make sure the Queen knew the stakes.

So now it had come down to it that the man who could have been King if not for his selfish slaughter and generally unsuitable ways to it would be the key to saving Ferelden. Maker damn her to the Void for even thinking about the fact she wasn't an infallible warrior, that any of them were infallible. Just able to bleed enough to die eventually and very soon if this didn't work.

She knocked sharply on the door further down the corridor and waited for the accented voice to bid her enter. "I'll be but a moment!" The deep voice said with a rustling of linens inside the room.

It eventually opened to reveal Riordan, his leather britches put on as hastily as is unbuttoned shirt and hair slightly matted to the side of his face – he'd been asleep then and having one of the infamous Warden nightares. "Jules I hadn't-"

She cut him off with a hand put up. "I can't sleep, if you were sleeping yourself I can always try counting sheep I suppose." But she wanted to sit with the Orlesian, have someone just as level-headed as herself for once to speak her worries away.

Their last conversation flooded into her memory.

* * *

_They were seated in Eamon's private study just after he'd told them about the Archdemon and the death of the Warden that slew it. Alistair had gone off, distraught by any guess of hers and most likely to weep into the bosom of the pseudo-grandmother that accompanied them - the healer Wynne. Quite the magical marvel but annoying and judgemental. It also seemed she was above normal rules for mages regarding freedoms. "So what will happen during this Landsmeet?" He'd asked, leaning back into his chair, cut-crystal goblet of wine in hand. _

_She'd come to enjoy sitting with him, ignoring the glaringly obvious Orlesian and Ferelden divide. If she thought about it a friendship that felt illicit more than anything, like the ridiculous stories of love and dragons she'd devoured as a child. Neither was too real. Well - dragons were and she had the scars to prove that. Love wasn't and she had scars to prove that too. Dairren had died in her arms, so eager to please and handsome. The arrow had burst through his chest, his blood covered her hands as she forced herself into her armour that night, grabbed the greatsword that would be a constant until it broke and she'd been forced to have Vigilance forged. Master Wade of Denerim had nearly cried when she presented him with the High Dragon thighbone from the false Andraste in the Frostback Mountains._

_"We stop assassins and bounty hunters dogging us grand three Wardens in the country and put Eamon in his place from trying to put one of us on the throne. Do you think I can ask a King to fight alongside us when we really start running after the Archdemon? I'd be suicide!" Juliet slumped in her chair and reached for the bottle of Antivan red, pouring the spiced wine into her goblet and taking a deep mouthful of it._

_"Loghain, I imagine won't go down without a fight." Riordan warned, needlessly in her opinion but he was one of the only people that ever warned her about doing anything. The others it seemed couldn't give a flying fuck if she died or not to end the Blight._

_"I highly doubt he would. But I'm not killing him, just imagine the rumours mill! Us nomadic and out-of-favour Wardens waltz in and slay the Hero of River Dane! For all the things he's done there's a lot of people still loyal to the man, our predicament could just get worse. Before we got here it was really only the Guerrins and the Brylands that looked down on Loghain and I actually think it's because the man was born a commoner. Petty fools." Unfortunate if true, it seemed a no-win situation but taking him off the throne as Regent would be their best bet._

_Riordan looked over at her, fingering the rim of his own goblet and his lips were pinched to the side. "There is another solution."_

_That peaked her curiosity. "Do continue by all means." She picked up her goblet and had another mouthful._

_"Conscript him into the Wardens using your power as Commander, if he dies – revenge is taken for our dear Alistair and all is sorted in private."_

_"But if he lived!" Juliet almost spat her wine out, gulping forcefully instead but still spluttering. "If he lived we would have the Hero of River Dane bound to the taint just as much as we are!"_

_"And we don't have volunteers by any means. Just think of the pull he'd bring in our number." Riordan said it straight faced but she could see the way he'd been happy about that. "Although, out of curiosity alone, would you have given that same mercy to Rendon Howe? I get the impression your hatred for the man almost equalled Alistair's venom for Loghain."_

_"In all honesty, the cornered rat fought to his death. If he'd given me the option I'd have bound him to the taint like I was forced to. He deserved no less mercy than our lives. Our nightmares, the horrid feeling of thick poison running in our veins." She knew the face she pulled at the mere thought of it all wasn't attractive. Her mother would have scolded her something rotten about the wind changing and her face staying the same way._

_"I take it Duncan conscripted you then." Riordan's easy humour was gone, instead a burning severity that spoke volumes about his own choice in joining the order they were both in._

_"Yes actually. My mother and I fought our own way out of the castle when he waltzed in as if he'd protected us from Howe's men! Then drew permission for my conscription from the lips of my dying father and dragged me away – sacrificing my mother to those jackals. I'm not fool enough to think one warrior could have seen to all those men, and I would have escaped with my mother and if I could have – my father. But I wasn't given that option. I was Duncan's prize for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucky me." She shrugged, more at peace with it since the last time she'd spoken about that night. It was to Alistair when he'd been very clear in his adoration of Duncan at the time. He still was, thought the sleepless nights and the broiling disgust inside their veins was worth it to be the legend that was a Grey Warden. Just as vainglorious as his half-brother in his own way._

_"Some of us never come to terms with joining." He half-smiled in a companionable way._

_"It was like he thought I owed him. I owed Duncan nothing." She swallowed the rest of her wine, putting her goblet down slightly too forcefully. "Regardless, after the Landsmeet we're to follow what scouts from the Queens army said. The horde is moving toward Redcliffe. What the darkspawn hope to achieve by attacking the almost defenceless Arling is beyond me. If I were the darkspawn I'd turn my attentions to the jewel of the country and raze Denerim to the ground. But I guess I'm not a mindless tainted monster that rapes women and twists them into broodmothers."_

_Riordan was silent for a while as he finished up his wine. "I should hope not, but I do reckon your inkling has merit, if we route the horde at Redcliffe I highly doubt Denerim will be far off for our travels."_

* * *

And now here she was, out of her armour while the squires saw to repairing the broken strappings and buckles the Ogres in Redcliffe had done, the actual dragonbone plates unharmed even by the heavy blows. Even if her body wasn't so lucky. She could feel the gauze of the bandages around her upper arm where the plating and chain had been clean torn off, her muscles painstakingly magic'ed back together by a tutting Wynne. In all honesty it was odd how much more resilient her armour was than she.

And Riordan beckoning her into his room, tiredly sitting into a low plush chair and cracking open one of the dusty bottles of wine he may have stolen from the wine cellar in the castle. She might have stolen a few while they were here last too. When on the run from assassins and trying to get troops for the army like your arse was on fire meant luxuries of wine and candied grapes were hard to come by.

The figs and dates in crystalised honey with wine she'd ferreted away in her tent, savouring them as much a Warden was able before hunger won out and she'd had to swallow the morsels were worth undead corpses and trekking mountains full of crazed cultists. Guilt made her share the wine - but those figs and dates were her secret joy. "You spoil me." She murmured as he passed the tinted green bottle, the slightly bitter tang of the wine hitting her nose before she took a swig directly from the bottleneck.

"We just have to watch the luxuries we're afforded, sharing them I find, makes them feel much more valuable." He grinned lop-sidedly and wiped a loose tendril of his dark brown hair from his face.

Juliet passed him back the wine. "Would you share honeyed figs and dates pilfered from a twat-faced Arl?" She asked candidly, adjusting herself so the fresh scars on her arm weren't pinching.

"Maker forbid sharing those. I would say my personal item I could never share would be ginger oat cake. I knew a wonderful baker who would make sure I always got the edges where the sugar had burnt just enough." Juliet found herself adoring the way his eyes gleamed at the thought.

"Who could guess an Orlesian would love a Ferelden sweet." She commented.

"You know my parents were Ferelden before they moved to Orlais, I still remember her baking them, and burnt fingers and tongues from sneaking a square too quickly." He shifted in his seat and sighed. "So you couldn't sleep?"

"Not a jot." She shrugged. "Worries I suppose. I have the horrid feeling someone will die soon if not all of us and there's nothing we can do."

The silence unfolded between them, uncomfortable. "The final blow is a worrying thought true, and the horde we must fight through to get to that just as problematic. But if at all possible I shan't allow you or Alistair to die that way. I will take that blow when the time comes, the taint has advanced so that I should have taken the Calling many months ago if truth be told. But I would rather die fighting the Blight than alone in some unnamed tunnel far beneath the surface."

"If you're able to of course." She pointed out, reaching for the bottle on the low table. "If I happen to be closest I'll end up having to take it."

"Or Alistair." Riordan added as she gulped a mouthful of the wine.

Juliet wiped the wine off her lips as she passed the bottle over to him. "Yes, or Alistair. It's strange to think how... close one of us will be to dying."

But his eyes roamed on her features, narrowing. "You don't seem to be so... sure of that."

"There might be a way we could survive tomorrow... if the darkspawn don't get us of course. We may yet survive that final blow." She blurted it out, unable to not say it to one of the few people that thought she might not be expendable against the Archdemon. The Orlesian was willing to die in the place of the people - or rather person - that had tried to fight the Blight without any help other than a drunk dwarf, lecherous assassin, a frankly worrying bard, judgemental healer, scornful apostate shapeshifter qunari giant and a golem that may or may not be plotting revenge for the preservation of the Anvil of the Void. Not mentioning a mabari that still thought it was a puppy called Rebel. She wondered what her choice in companions in arms said about her, most likely desperate and hardly fussy about it to boot. She'd cleaned vomit from ginger beard and hair too many times to be called fussy.

"Do tell." He raised an eyebrow, those grey eyes that noticed her hesitation boring into her green ones as he took a swig of the wine.

"I'm just saying that we could be years from reaching the Archdemon, more Wardens could arrive in time to take the blow for us." She sighed non-committally, wishing she'd said nothing. "I'm being pragmatic is all."

"You know something I don't. And there's guilt there." He stated, the bottle placed between them on the table.

Juliet looked at it, the droplet running a track down the dusty neck as if asking to be captured, the wine only half reaching up the pissed bottle. "You read me like a book Riordan." She stated, whetting her lips. She ran her fingers in the choppy cut of her hair, burnt short by a darkspawn mage in the deep roads and cut with a dagger to take off the frazzled black ends. It wouldn't do to have black ends when one had blonde hair. Leliana's comment about how she tried to wear it prettily once by braiding a portion with a green ribbon sprang to mind. It had been a find, lost by someone and caught in a cartwheel. The warrior had pocketed it without a thought and tried to use it on the mess of her recently cut locks. Now it stayed around her wrist.

"Is that it?" He blinked.

"No." She cleared her throat.

"Then by all means continue."

"I intend to." She rolled her eyes. "If a Grey Warden were pregnant... the soul could possibly go to the child could it not?" She winced, awaiting his rebuffing statement, or glowering and spite about sacrificing a baby to live yourself.

"It could, if a Grey Warden could get pregnant of course and have the child take the death the mother should have taken. You aren't-" She cut him of with a snort and shake of her head. Maker's breath no! "Then who?"

"If I said the mother wasn't a Warden herself, but pregnant by one." She alluded mysteriously, not about to say how she'd coerced Alistair into sharing a bed with an apostate in the room - her room - a few doors down. One of the few reasons she couldn't sleep was because her bed was currently in use.

"And she'd sacrifice the child to save the Warden that took the final blow? Unconventional but... it could be the sort of soul the Archdemon would be drawn to in hopes of it's own life. It was postulated it only tries to fight our own souls to take our bodies, the idea of a longer life that an unborn child would have would be a powerful beacon." He nodded as if in thought. "It could also mean a non-Warden might be able to take the final blow."

"But if instead of dying the child was only born with the soul of an Old God? Untainted Old God wouldn't be dangerous would it?" Because if it was she'd have to undo what she'd started, even if it meant killing her sort-of-friend Morrigan. It had turned out that friendship had been little more than a rouse to try and make her more amenable to getting Alistair in her bed now but one couldn't be picky when the dwarf and assassin were the most trustworthy friends she had. How sad was that?

"It's the fact it's tainted that makes it dangerous." Riordan furrowed his brow. "Such a thought never occurred to me about it being possible to have an untainted God. I would suggest watching this pregnant woman and if this child is born, the child."

"Undoubtedly." She sighed, glad the prospect of a baby with an Old God soul wasn't horrific or wrong or even dangerous. At least not at first glance to the seniormost Warden in the country.

"I am still to die regardless. It seems wasteful." He sighed, looking morosely at the droplet that still clung rebelliously to the side of the wine bottle. He looked so tired, ready for death at that moment.

"We all die of course. But if one of us dies against the Archdemon, which still may be the case - our name would be forgotten within enough time. It's shocking Garahel has been remembered for so long, especially as he was an elven warrior. I'm not demeaning his sacrifice for his birth but it's a strange occurrence when the everyday man doesn't give two hoots for darkspawn, Grey Wardens or elves."

Riordan nodded sadly. "It was a long enough Blight, this one has been a lot shorter by far. I'd be shocked if any of our names go down in history except as three crazy fools against an Archdemon."

"You know we're going to die Riordan." She stated. "This might just mean someone other than a Warden can kill the Archdemon."

The silence stretched between them, longer but more comfortable. "If we're to die can I say one thing?"

"What would that be?" She arched an eyebrow and reached for the bottle standing there so forlorn.

"I'm honoured to have met you Jules." He gulped. "You've done more as a Grey Warden this last year than most of us do in our lifetimes."

"I'm a monster." Juliet sighed. "I've hurt people, destroyed cultures and generally done the things storybook villains twirl their moustaches at and exclaim mwah ha ha ha ha to followed by 'you'll never foil me!'"

"Nothing is more monster than a darkspawn." He breathed. Juliet couldn't look up and took a long drink of the bitter wine.

"I am." She eventually stated. "Would anyone but a tainted monster curse the Dalish into becoming werewolves? Allow a creation like the Anvil of the Void?"

She put the bottle down and Riordan took it, drinking it quickly until it was finished, just the last dregs in the bottom as he put it none-too-forcefully back on the table. "You did what was needed. Monsters don't think they're monsters, they just do what they do without remorse in the slightest."

He got up from the chair and took her hand limp on her lap. "Monsters don't think about how the dwarves are practically on death's door to the darkspawn and try to do something about it. That Anvil could be the key to their survival and taking back their lands."

She sniffed, the feeling of his warm hand on hers, calluses from holding swords and daggers or a bow pressing into her own work roughed hand, a scar on the knuckle from a flask of acid. His thumb rubbed on that scar, softly. "Monsters don't bear the scars we do."

She looked up to see his face mere inches from hers, those grey eyes deep, the dark stubble that decorated his jaw within a distance to touch. She met his gaze, green meeting the grey and it sparked, just the need, unquenchable need to feel and touch.

Their lips met forcefully, his stubble grazing on her skin, his hand having left hers to cup her jaw, fingers warm just beneath her ears. She groaned into his mouth, standing to meet him, shorter than the Orlesian enough that her hands sought his shoulders, hot beneath his unbuttoned shirt.

They parted breathlessly, lost in the moment. He nuzzled her temple with his lips and nose, just breathing, regaining air to his lungs. "Let me feel you. _Accorde-moi un peu de mort mon Orlesian._"

"_Ma chérie_." His low voice thrummed through her and she leaned up on her toes, meeting his lips again with fire, truly tasting the wine on his lips - Maker it tasted better this way as he held her in the circle of his arms, hands brushing the hem of her tunic and splaying on the warm flesh at the small of her back.

Juliet gasped at the feeling, arching into those callused hands. Riordan craned his face down, nibbling down the exposed cream of her throat expertly, she hmm'ed in pleasure, whetting her lips unwittingly and grasped tighter to the wiry muscles of his shoulders, melding into him, the heat rising from between her thighs that nearly took her breath away all over again. "Riordan." She groaned, the backs of her calves hitting the edge of the four-poster in the room.

He pushed her down on the bed, in one fluid movement slipping her tunic up and over her head. The back of her head hit the dishevelled linens and she wrapped her leather-legging clad legs around his hips. His slipped down until her legs were around his waist and his lips were travelling down her collarbones, laving on the scars there given by shrieks shortly after her first sights of the Archdemon in the tainted flesh deep below the surface world.

She pulled his unbuttoned shirt off as his attentions turned to her breasts, wetting the lacy fabric of her breastband as he nibbled at the pebbled nipple through it. "Juliet." Riordan muttered as his lips touched the scars on her ribs, given by an Ogre atop the Tower of Ishal so long ago. She'd learned from that, covering herself in heavier, thicker armour.

Those damned fingers pulled at the laces that held her britches closed and she closed her eyes, just feeling the heat of the taint tethering between them, the warm hardness of his hands as he gripped the clinch of her waist, his wine-flavoured breath that ghosted on her stomach. Riordan lifted on his forearms and she opened her eyes, meeting his grey gaze, the undeniable blaze wordless between them.

They stayed still, neither willing to break the moment until Juliet latched her legs around Riordan and flipped him into the bed, straddling over him predatorily, grinning at the shock evident on his face. "Not used to being on the bottom?" She purred, arching down and biting the flush skin of his neck, threading her fingers in the hair that decorated his chest.

Riordan smirked, arching an eyebrow saucily. "Unfair advantage." He groaned, a fine shiver settling on him as she slipped her hand further down his chest onto his stomach, following the trailing hair to the jutting muscles of his hips. Maker's breath, she grinned, feeling the bulge in his britches through the thin leather.

"Unfair advantage?" She smirked. "This is an unfair advantage."

Riordan was all but helpless as she brushed her hand under the band of his britches and smallclothes, the hot skin of his thick cock, the wetness atop the exposed helmet. "I can think of more you know." Juliet whispered tauntingly.

"Threat or promise_ ma chérie_?" With one hand still holding his cock she undid the laces of his britches and slipped his smallclothes off, freeing the surprisingly hard and even thicker than she'd thought cock from the leather confines. His precum glistened in the flickering, ambient light of the candles in the room and she had the urge to take him in her mouth, at her mercy.

"Definite threat." She growled.

He looked at her with a mixture of awe and unbridled passion, letting loose a shuddered gasp as she removed her breastband. He pushed up and took a nipple between his teeth, biting down on the raspberry bud, the other breast cupped in his warm palm, the nipple pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Juliet sucked in a deep breath, almost screaming at the intense pleasure that rolled deep inside her. "Fuck me!" She groaned.

Riordan pulled her closer by the waist until the crotch of her britches is just over the hard length of his cock exposed. There shouldn't have been anything between them, not the leather of her britches at all.

He understood this too and pushed her forcefully into the bed, amongst the linens, her cheeks flushed and blonde hair fanned out. He looked down and her and moved with the fluid, roguish grace of a mountain cat, pulling her boots off and her britches. The errant thought that it was Orlesian eyes trailing over her scarred body, soaking in the whimpers that came unbidden as he touched up her calves with those warm fingers sent hot sparks from her stomach to her sex.

Riordan finally reached her wet smalls and brushed his fingers on the sensitive skin right next to them of her thigh, purposely if she was any judge. Juliet bucked helplessly, wanting him to touch her. "Did I ever tell you there's nothing dirtier than Orlesian on a Ferelden tongue _ma_ _chérie_?"

"_Apprends-moi à parler Orlesian comment il est censé être parlé ensuite._" Her own words sent her closer to the edge, still untouched by the man and keening for his mouth or his fingers, his cock deep inside her.

Riordan whetted his lips, groaning deep in his chest and he slipped his hand into her smalls, moving the gusset to the side and slipping an arched index finger deep inside her wet cunt. She lifted off the bed, gasping at the intrusion, her mouth parted. "Not used to being at someone else's mercy _ma déesse_?"

"_Non_! Maker's mercy Riordan!" She bucked into his hand as his thumb sought the bundle of nerves of her nub, jerking sideways. The shivers down her spine were powerful surges of desire that coiled for him and this strange feeling of being at the mercy of someone else, the older, Orlesian Warden being her master and giver of pleasure in this infinitesimal moment.

"_Pas de pitié_." He ground out, capturing her lips in a searing kiss as she was being taken to the brink on his finger. She could feel herself tipping over that edge when he retracted his finger and held it out, slick with the juices he'd caused. Riordan parted from her lips and held the finger up between them, licking up the digit. She quivered, biting her lower lip but that was so damnably sexy.

Juliet panted, calming from being taken to the edges of pleasure and not allowed to surpass that wonderful brink. "You're going to pay for that." She tackled him onto the ground, hitting the woven carpet with a thud that twinged the new stitches on her arm still bound with the gauzy bandages.

Riordan huffed out a breath, caught of guard by the younger woman warrior and she shifted on her knees until she was faced with the throbbing, weeping head of his cock before her lips. She held him in one hand, too thick to fully wrap her fingers around him fully and enveloped the head, tongue brushing his pushed back foreskin. He groaned, hips bucking up to force his head deeper in her mouth, whatever self-control he had gone in the face of being in her mouth.

Juliet bobbed him deeper into her throat, hand cupping and massaging his balls until he was swearing in his native tongue too fast for her to translate, the salty musk of him deep in her senses and his pre-cum dribbling from the corners of her mouth. Riordan pulled his cock from her none too slowly and she glanced up at his stormy face. "_Ma chérie, _not so quickly." He tutted, one hand reverently cupping under her chin as he sat up. "I intend to savour you."

A fine shiver settled over her skin at his husky voice, lower and accent so much more pronounced that the implications of allowing an Orlesian even glance at her naked flesh was thrill enough to have her juices flowing. "And how would you intend to stop me?" She purred.

"Dear Jules, I have my ways of binding you, bringing you closer to the edge each time before I allow you to get there." His grip had turned harsher on her jaw when he kissed her, tasting himself on her lips and tongue. He wiped a thumb under her bottom lip, capturing the dribbled saliva and pre-cum before she sucked it off his thumb. "If it gets too much the safety word is 'Blight'."

He whispered the words into her ear, brushing a hand down her spine. She shivered, wanting to know why she'd need a safety word but too enraptured in the want to care because it thrilled her. He hoisted her up to standing with him and unknotted the long green ribbon from her wrist. "Now I'm going to tie you up _ma chérie_, and you're going to like it." His words were forceful as he lifted her arms, tying the green ribbon in loops around her wrists and then to the top of the four poster, forcing her to stand on tiptoes. The silky ribbon pulled into the flesh of her wrists and she held on the length between the top of the railing for support.

The feeling of being at his whim and mercy was a powerful surge within her, making her wish she could rub her thighs together to quell the ache there. Riordan stood back, cock jutting erect, ready to take her now and looked at her, eyes not sparing on the curves of her hips and breasts nor the jagged or puckered scars around her body.

His naked gaze sent another jolt through her that felt as if he were touching her. "Yes, I quite like this." He announced lowly, approaching her. His hand cupped one breast lovingly, the other skating down her back to cup her under the buttocks. She arched into his touch despite the limitations on her movement and he tutted. "Too impatient."

He moved away and she whimpered without his warm hands roaming on her wanton flesh. Juliet needed him like she needed air that moment, hungered for a release not from the binds but this tormenting ache between her thighs. He turned around and pulled his britches and smalls off, she groaned at the sight of his muscular legs and his arse like two eggs in a hanky. Maker's breath she wanted him now! He turned around again, a candle in hand. Her eyes widened - he wasn't... he wasn't going to hurt her! Was he? "Don't worry so, if you don't like it you have your safety word." She let out the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding and he blew the candle out.

Riordan neared her in the slightly dimmer room and held the warm beeswax candle to her cheek. "What are you doing?" She breathed, curious and aching for what he thought she'd enjoy in this. He shh'ed her eyes like liquid metal hooded as he tipped the candle.

The wax dripped onto her breast, perked up higher than usual from her lifted arms. It scalded for the briefest of seconds, trailing a hot line on her skin before hardening into a yellow splatter. She moaned, caught up at the strange adrenaline flowing through her body at the thought of pain and pleasure so intertwined. "Hmm, you like it then."

She gasped a yes as more of the hot wax hit her breast, the heat flowing to coil between her thighs, the wetness almost dripping to her knees in this position. Maker's breath that he would play with her body like a fiddle and make it sound so right! She hissed and shivered as more wax hit her other breast, encapsulating the nipple, her mouth opened and the sound she made was guttural, primal with need. "Fuck yes I like it Riordan!" She demanded. He leaned over to the desk and re-lit the candle before putting it down.

His warm hands roamed over her wax splattered breasts, peeling the soft trails off and massaging the sweet smelling beeswax into her pale skin, Juliet heaved her breaths, severely needing him at that moment. "Touch me, I need you." She pleaded, shocked by the desperation in her voice at being played so well by him.

He needed no further encouragement, lifting her under the thighs until she was straddling his hips, still holding tightly to the ribbon attached to the four-poster frame. He let go of her, forcing her to tighten her thighs around his waist, feeling his cock at her entrance but knowing that if she let go to impale herself on his length, she'd wrench her shoulders and hurt.

He grinned, he knew it too and one hand reached around her, parting her soaked lips and finger delving inside her wet cunt. She groaned loudly and whimpered before his lips covered hers. She was getting closer to coming over his fingers as they slipped and thrust from behind inside her and he pulled them out at the last possible second, leaving her wanting.

Juliet felt the tears pricking the corner of her eyes at the swaying from almost coming apart like this and being denied it. "Still so impatient. Savour it Jules." Riordan reprimanded in her ear, his voice sending more hot jolts down her spine.

"Untie me and fuck me like I know you want to." She ground out back. Riordan smirked, pushing her so she stood with feet planted on the horse-hair mattress before he undid the knots of the green ribbon. She rubbed the reddened skin around her wrists, delighted at the markings truth be told.

He held her until she was seated on the edge of the bend, kneeling between her splayed thighs, his breath hitching as he was eye-level to her cunt. She shivered and hmm'ed at his naked gaze on her sex and the way he licked his lips. Maker's breath! He leaned forward slowly and inhaled, she gasped.

Then his tongue ran the length of her slick lips, so hot against her, hands gripping to her hips as he nibbled and lapped at her like she was the fountain of youth or the sweetest wine he'd come across. Juliet hooked her knees on his shoulders as he continued his ministrations, panting at the sensation of his tongue and lips and his stubble on her thighs when his tongue delved inside her cunt.

Holy fucking Andraste! She near screamed and threaded her fingers into his shoulder-length hair, unwilling for him to stop as she shuddered, his flexing tongue making her muscles tighten and relax in time to her pulse it seemed from facial ones to the tips of her curled toes.

Juliet's lips parted as she started to fall over the edge, when it stopped so suddenly it nearly winded her. She gasped for air and stared unbelievingly at the man on his knees between her legs, cursing him and adoring him at the same time and wordlessly wanting him now. She needed him so badly it hurt!

He lifted of his knees, heat and sincerity in his grey eyes, a lingering, soft kiss on her lips as she tasted herself on him, her arms tight behind his neck and his hands splayed on her ribcage.

Riordan lowered Juliet softly onto the bed, trailing with a gentleness over her skin with his calluses fingers that made her shiver in a completely different way to the primal want that had been consuming her. "Riordan." She whispered, brushing a lock of his hair off his face and tucking it behind his ear, his scalp flushed hot under her fingers.

"Jules." He smiled back, stroking up and down her side reverently, she felt him position himself at her entrance and took himself in hand as he guided into himself into her cunt, slowly, lips parting in a wet pucker.

His kiss was soft on her lips, just the two of them in that moment joining together, the fire down to a flickering ember that was hotter than the flames as she held his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as he thrust inside her for the first time. She felt so full and stretched by him, more ready to take him than she could bear.

Riordan looked ethereal, basked in the glow of the flickering candles, the sweat beaded on his forehead as he thrust into her, pinning her beneath his corded arms. He sped up ever so slightly, groaning and arching back onto his knees. He looked down at his cock entering her and reached a thumb to the bundle of nerves of her nub.

Juliet tightened, mewling at the feeling of both his cock and thumb, bucking into him, ribcage arched upwards and throat bared. The heat rose under her knees all the way to behind her ears and she furrowed her brow. So close, so close she was keening for it. Please don't let the damned Orlesian stop!

Riordan sped up, the feel of his cock sliding inside her, brushing that sweet pleasurable spot within her and his thumb working on her nub. Her jaw ached and she trembled from jaw to knees when she finally fell over the brink, so ready to do so, primed. His name spilled over her lips in a keened litany, her throat so hoarse from need she wasn't even sure what she was saying any more, just flooded with warmth.

The haze lifted slowly and Riordan was kept to his punishing thrusting inside her, she could feel her pulse in her cunt, twitching over him as he pounded into her until he shuddered too, babbling Orlesian nonsensically into her ear as he all but collapsed, hairy chest against her breasts glistening from their waxy massage.

He grit his teeth, sucking in air as if for dear life when their eyes met, green to grey. It was warm, not hot but still needful and their lips met languidly, repeating the soft caress of their lovemaking in tongues. "_Je t'aime ma petite fleur._" He breathed as they parted with a wet pucker.

She shuddered at the husky declaration, heaving a breath in. "_Et je tu, mon amour._"

If she'd been any other woman she may have cried as he kissed her again, lips possessing as he slipped from inside her, curling up to her body like a spoon. It felt so natural, so right that it hurt with how right it was. Her perfect match was a bloody Orlesian Grey Warden!

Juliet could almost laugh at that, mirthlessly as she cried and instead held tighter to the roguish man, rubbing soft circles into the half-moons where her nails had dug into his shoulders as they fell asleep into the beckoning Fade. Riordan draped the bed linens over them tucking them snugly into that war cocoon of post-coitus.

As a last thought he reached over her to grab the candle snuffer, extending it to put out the candles remaining lit in the room.

They stayed that way until morning. No Blight to deal with but the suffering of two Wardens entrapped in a nightmare until the other soothed them back down with shushed words and calm, patient touches, fully understanding the other.

* * *

After note: And here's where I end it, we'll go off canon and say Riordan doesn't go off on his suicide mission against the Archdemon on his own, instead Alistair gets left to defend the gates, Juliet and Riordan run off with Wynne, Sten and Rebel. Juliet kills the Archdemon and is named Hero of Ferelden.

Juliet and Fergus are reunited, he marries Anora and they eventually have a small gaggle of princes and princesses.

Juliet and Riordan then restore Soldier's Peak where Avernus manages to stave off the Calling for a while but tells it will be a temporary measure.

The two lovers take on Awakenings, kill the Architect, save the city and keep. Then the calling really sets in. As a last ditch attempt the two go to Haven and complete the gauntlet to the Ashes. Riordan is cured of the deadliness and bad stuff about being a Grey Warden so Juliet takes a snuff of the Ashes too.

They live happily ever after! Hear that Bioware and lovers of corny romance and true love? Happily ever after! As Teyrna and Teryn-Consort in Highever as Fergus is King with Queen Anora! And they'd have chickens! And goats! And a few cherubic babies!

Or you know... canon. You could be boring and go with canon. But canon sucks in my opinion! :P to canon!


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